The objective of any company is very simple, and that is to maximize its earnings. Yet, if there comes a time you open your business in a market which has numerous firms like yours, the competition involved is fierce and you must ensure that people buy from you.
One way you can do that is to spend a good deal on the design of your website, as will be presented below, and thus position yourself in front of all as an industry expert. Last, but not least, the important point to take into account is that web design should be nice both inside and out. Here are some ways you can improve your design and how it can help you sell more:
Essential Web Design Elements Your Website Must Incorporate
Your website should be intuitive, navigable, and aesthetic. To achieve this goal, you should incorporate these elements:
1. Appearance and Layout
Studies show that an average user takes 50 milliseconds to decide about your website. This duration is definitely insufficient to go through the information contained on the website, so their first impression of your business hinges on appearance and layout. If what they see is not to their taste, they will instantly proceed to a competitor’s site hence low chances of returning.
Keep in mind that a messy layout does not appeal to customers. Strive for a minimal, uncluttered, and clean look when you can. White spaces are an excellent tool at your disposal: they direct the user’s attention to key information. Similarly, grid spacing organizes elements with a sense of cohesion across the site. The pictures and infographics that you include have to harmonize with your content, thus their color gradients and orientations should not contradict a sense.
The layout is not about what design elements you apply; it also concerns whether they suit each other. The format, typography, color scheme, and picture style must be the same on every page of your website. Designing drastically different web pages can lead users to feel lost, as they might end up thinking that the site “pop-up” or “ad” led them to another site.
Related: 10 Important Elements of Graphic Design: All You Need to Know.
2. Navigation
The longer a customer has to spend hunting down information from your website, the angrier they will become and prone to switching over to rivals’ sites. Good design is not possible without intuitive navigation. Use the header of your site to guide users to popular pages. The footer should also include links to pertinent information, e.g., by placing a “back-to-top” button at the end of each page.
Do not forget to include breadcrumbs in the design, because they enable a visitor to see their site map and go back to every page which was looked through before. Also, relevant articles can be added to each page. This strategy will encourage clients to spend more time on your site and possibly make a purchase.
3. Content
Ensure that your content is correct, helpful, and entertaining. The impression left by dull and boring content is never so positive. Make the text user-friendly; this means avoiding jargon and using connectors that help to connect one thought with another. Don’t just write content the way it is and make sure to include call-to-actions where necessary. But also, do not overdose on these; the clients should not feel like they are being sold to. You might also increase traffic by posting content that your target reader will appreciate.
Infographics are capable of distributing your main ideas because many users do not have time for detailed information. They are more likely to prefer images that deliver the correct information in a clear and quick manner as opposed to reading long pages. In addition, using infographics supports SEO and will allow increasing traffic as well.
4. Mobile Layout and Design
Today, most of the e-commerce is done on the go with users going into their mobile websites for shopping. However, there’s a disconnect between users and designers: many designers develop websites on computers for a layout that would look good for a PC. As a result, your customers who are using mobile phones will get annoyed if they cannot have a good experience on their smartphone and might migrate to another competitor.
“Optimizing a web page for mobile is simple. However, you need to know how to fill it with essential components and at the same time do not kill the page.” – as Katrina O’Connell, Business Manager at kmo.com mentioned during one of her recent interviews.
Ensure that the page does not cross over, as you change from a horizontal screen to a vertical screen. It is not easy since you are supposed to choose a readable font that will leave space for other elements. Downsize the picture such that it does not twist but fits on the screen comfortably.
Nevertheless, there are difficulties in optimizing websites for phones. For instance, one may not include navigation items such as breadcrumbs in a mobile website design because of limitations on the number of elements, and therefore necessary selections have to be made. This is where experienced website designers come in.
5 Ways Good Web Design Elevates Your Brand
See also: Dashboard UI Design: Analyzing the Best Practices for Stakeholders.
Continue reading to find out how proper web design could increase your level of business.
1. Improved Google Rankings
Your web design determines your SEO optimization, which means it goes to influence your Google rankings. Your efforts would be more successful if you employed unique, personalized designs and willingly advanced toward prospective customers. By using better quality content and other aspects of web structure, you can achieve high ratings that consequently increase the number of views and clicks.
Also, ranking is also dropping on slow websites. If your website is quick enough to captivate the attention of users, you will experience increased traffic and effective SEO. With slow-speed performances, the visitors do not hold on for more than some seconds. Google then sees it as your website providing a negative experience to its searchers and adjusts to lower your rank on the search engine.
2. User-Centric Features
In each stage of web design, your designers must concentrate on users and their needs. A good web design should have features that are user-centric in nature and should incorporate social media plugins. It looks at the goals of usability, user characteristics, environment, tasks, and workflow regarding a product that customers focus on, which potentially increases sales.
You can use social media plugins to show your Facebook, Instagram, and other profiles. It also enables readers to put the content they like on their social media pages. This is very good as it makes use of the user or could-be social media influencer to publicize your platform and get more people turning up for inventory on the website.
3. Builds Credibility
One of the common scams is phishing, where scammers lure you into giving out your sensitive and personal data. The credibility of the website is a matter of fact growing more and more crucially important in view of the surge involving internet fraud, which again points to the importance of a good website.
Having no website works against the credibility of brands in today’s market. For example, most customers will get to know your brand and build their first impression of your business with just a glimpse at your website.
Welcome your visitors to a website that is clean, professional, and simple with displays showing what you are involved in, your products, and above all – your values. If your business contact information is featured on the site, it provides confidence to clients that they are dealing with a credible company and not fraudsters.
Showcase client testimonials from satisfied customers and their ratings to enable the inbound prospects to trust your brand before making any purchase. After establishing trust, it becomes easier for you to establish firm customer relationships and grow your business.
4. Increased Accessibility for Customers
Let’s consider an offline company, which is only operational during certain hours and closed off on some occasions like public holidays while a website is open 24/7. It is always ready to remain flexible for its clients whenever possible. A good web design should stay consistent as regards updated products or services offered with a live support chat in order that any interested potential client can see what you offer without going to your premises and communicate via the sales office.
In addition, you need to update your questionnaire section as often as possible so that people will find all the answers with a few mouse clicks. It means that your chances of making more sales are higher while you sit down and relax. Moreover, a good web design should enable the customers to communicate with the company directly or access important information freely without coming physically which saves time, cost, and effort.
5. Tailor-Made User Experience
A good web design should not be purely from what designers think the website ought to look like. Otherwise, you can always have the freedom to manage your website’s layout, remove any features, or add some functional buttons that you think are necessary for your company. This implies that you should continue to optimize your website based on how your customers are interacting with it.
These create a clutter-free online environment with elements tailored to your brand’s target audience. This way, your website will grow as your business prospers by investing in web app development plans. This continuous add/remove of features and controls gives you almost full control over your web app, which is very flexible when needed to scale your business.
Every investment in web development increases your digital presence, extends the reach to many other potential customers, and improves the chances of succeeding in your business. The most applied technologies with regard to website development are PHP and .NET used by the global leading IT services companies.
Related: Designing for Accessibility: A Digital Product Designer’s Guide.
Endnote
A good website design gains credibility for your organization and provides you with visitors who have time to look through your products or services. However, investing in marketing only does not auger well for sales. Therefore, you should invest more in web design along with investment in marketing so that at the point of clicking your website, people get what they want and are satisfied by the services given, find all the information they need, as well as the website speed.
Build your webshop with the customer at heart and establish sustained client relations thereby seeing your client numbers rise through the snowball effect! The users should be able to make purchases from your site without any difficulties or look for information on your various pages hence a friendly web design incorporating search functions, visual hierarchy, and integration with social media platforms. Therefore, it will enable you to enlarge your customer zone and make the existing customers come back.
